Sunday, May 06, 2007

French Election Update

A correspondent emails to say that a Swiss website has called the French election for Sarkozy, 54.4% in favour of Sarkozy, against 45.5% for Segolene Royal.

UPDATE: the result is actually 53-47. I've said before that I am not a fan of Sarkozy. He looks to me to be slightly unbalanced and a bit of a bastard. I suppose I should console myself by the fact that as a man of the Right he is at least OUR bastard.

29 comments:

David Lindsay said...

Disastrous if true. The end of Gaullism, of an independent French foreign policy.

A third permanent seat on the UN Security Council in the hands of a supporter of the neoconservative war agenda! Britain and France will still be like that even after the US itself has ceased to be!

And if even the French can no longer be bothered to maintain an independent foreign policy, then what hope is there for us, or for the Germans, or for the Italians, or for anyone at all really?

Anonymous said...

Thank God for Sarko! I wish it had been a larger margin, but still, it's definitive and that's all that counts. Au revoir, Sego!

Anonymous said...

Painful for some elements of the French population as Sarkozy drags them out of state dependency by force, but good news for the rest of the western world. Royale would have left the nation floating about in its comfortably padded dream world.

Anonymous said...

Left or Right, Iain, no Frenchperson is ever going to be OUR barsteward.

Anonymous said...

Anyone who refers in public to muslim rioters and car burners as "scum" is my kind of bastard.

I like the French very much, but I just couldn't continue to live there because everything was so insanely expensive and inconvenient.

Plus, nothing was ever open. Nine to noon, and if you ran up to the shop door at noon, they would shake their head as they hastily locked the door against you in case you tried to push in anyway. So, two hours out of the middle of your days.

Returning to work wasn't quite as urgent as leaving for lunch, so they began to re-open around 2:15 or 2:30. But come the last stroke on the town clock of five-thirty, the car parks were deserted and everything was locked up tight. So they worked from 9:00 until noon sharp. Then 2:30 until 5:30 sharp.

Then the endless public holidays and bridge days and August and two sets of property tax and the cost of electricity. They really are, as anonymous says above, living in a padded dreamworld. Oh, and retirement on a FAT pension at age 55.

Why retire people so young? Well because, as they are not creating any jobs at all - the French, as George Bush famously did not say, have no word for entrepreneur - people of 55 have to make way for young people to have their turn at being employed.

And small companies and professional companies, like dentists, doctors,lawyers, etc are scared to death to hire people because once hired, those people are entitled to that job forevermore, no matter how dire their performance.

Sarko is going to have his work cut out for him, but at least 54% of the French have now recognised that they have a killer problem in their society.

BCB Webmaster said...

'Testimony' - M Sarkozy's political biography (which was reviewed on 18DS a while ago) is well worth a read. A cynic might see it as a book length self justification exercise but after reading it I felt that it was a useful guide to the kind of politician he is (as well as why he took some past controversial decisions).

Laurence Boyce said...

I’ve said before that I am not a fan of Sarkozy. He looks to me to be slightly unbalanced and a bit of a bastard.

Incisive commentary as ever! It’s a shame though, I quite fancied her . . .

Anonymous said...

It would be an interesting exercise to come up with a big political hitter in any democracy who was not a bit of a bastard - getting to the top requires ruthlessness and a sublime belief in yourself above all others.

Discuss.

Anonymous said...

"as a man of the Right he is at least OUR bastard."

MT vessels make the most noise!

Anonymous said...

The end of Gaullism, of an independent French foreign policy.

which was a bit of a joke really since it meant sponsoring African dictators like Bokassa....and exporting weapons suited to the Third World but technologically not suited to the first world.

Gaullisme was an affectation without risk - France had not pursued a foreign policy in the 20th Century without inveigling The British Empire into holding its hand.....and Britain could not meet its commitment without dragging India and Australia and Canada into the fray

Anonymous said...

Why isn't Sarkozy allowed to be Frecnh President in your mind Iain? Aren't the French allowed a radical Thatcherite reforming agenda? Thatcher was 'untrustworthy' but it was her polarising attitudes that created a great politician with convictiion.

Iain Dale said...

Where exactly did I say he "shouldn't be allowed to be President"? All I said was that I didn't like him. I'd still vote for him over a Socialist, any day of the week.

Andrew said...

Verity: "if you ran up to the shop door at noon, they would shake their head as they hastily locked the door against you in case you tried to push in anyway"

Maybe it was just because they'd met you before Verity! :-)

Anonymous said...

Will be interesting to see if and how he can kick back at the socialist European Commission, and uncouple France from many of the overpowering edicts.

Will this mean an end to Merkle and Blair's dream of the EUSSR.

Liam Murray said...

France
Fine food...
Fine wine...
Population 64,000,000...
...and an election result 2/3 hours after polls close.

Scotland
Fish supper...
Bottle of Buckfast
Population 5,000,000
...and an election result 20 hours after polls close.

..and I haven't started on turnout! C'est la vie...

Enoch was right said...

Good news for France. A dose of Thatcherism coming. How long before France leaves the UK behind?
Brown will have to give lots of concessions to the Unions and soon the UK will mirror the France of today. Well on the way to that now.

Anonymous said...

Talking about any Frenchman as "ours" because he is not an extreme leftie is like Fidel Castro identifying with Hilary Clinton as a political soulmate because she isn't George Bush. Chirac was supposedly on the "right" and he didn't exactly do "us" any favours.

Anonymous said...

Andrew - Yes. Ha ha.

True story (and not about me): A friend of mine had been looking at houses with a particular immobilier and she made up her mind that she was going to go ahead and buy one that she liked. She walked to their office and was about to open the glass door and go in when the agent who had actually shown her the house came running forward, pointing at her watch (it was five minutes to twelve) and shaking her head. She inserted the key quickly into the lock - why take a chance on the customer coming in anyway? - and shrugged again.

She'd just thrown away a commission of around 5,000 euros rather than have a buyer intrude on her lunch time. Or perhaps she thought my friend would meekly accept the ascendancy of lunch over all else and return later in the day. She didn't.

Anonymous said...

Viva La Sarkozy Révolution! Viva La France!

Anonymous said...

Within an hour of Sarkozy being elected there are reports of muslims rioting all across France from Brittany to Marseille.

Now perhaps we'll see if he's a man of substance or just full of hot air.

http://news.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,70131-1264337,00.html

Anonymous said...

So Sarkozy has been democratically and legitimately elected (tho' calling him a Thatcherite is pushing it a bit!), and the muslims are rioting because they don't like it.

Says it all really.

Anonymous said...

Sarkozy would increase his poll ratings if he cut those bl**dy stupid shoulder pads out of his jackets.

Auntie Flo'

Anonymous said...

Auntie Flo' - fine, but he is in the style capital of the universe and no one has gainsaid him. For all we know, this is le dernier cri in France and tomorrow the world. We should not be judgemental.

Judith - "the muslims are rioting" ... What's new? In the last two years, they burnt 55,000 cars in France. Quite a lot, really.

Liam Murray - Well, there goes the Auld Alliance!

David Lindsay said...

Voyager, your problem with Chirac was that he really was a conservative, and your problem with Gaullism was that it really was a conservative ideology.

So, no "Someone Else's Country [America, Israel], Right Or Wrong". No use of "realist" as a term of abuse. No idolisation of the Whiggish "free" market, with its utterly corrosive effects on everything that conservatives, properly so called, exist in order to conserve.

Oh well, goodbye to all that.

Even I do have to hand it to the neocons. Theirs is an ideology with no roots in the mainstream political tradition of any country on earth. Yet they have managed to convince Americans that world-remamking military interventionism is not only American, but American even in a conservative sense. They have managed to convince conservative Australian and Canadian voters to support subordination to America (thus redefined, of course).

They have managed to supplant the Social Catholic tradition in Germany (at least beyond Bavaria), Italy, Spain and Portugal, a tradition less like which their own ideology could not conceivably be. They have managed to supplant even the Tory and Labour traditions in Britain, at least in the sense that no political party now embodies, or seeks o give effect to, either of those traditions. And now they have even managed to supplant Gaullism.

Chilling. But impressive.

Anonymous said...

At least Sarkozy is a bastard with balls unlike that wimpering wet Cameron! Vive la France!!

Anonymous said...

France has got a leader, identified as such for years before this election. Now, where can the UK find its leader? Certainly not among any politician around at the moment. There is no way the next general election will get anywhere near the French turnout. Cameron and the Conservatives should take note. Listen to the people, the majority for once, get some policies, some real ones, and stick to them! You may get elected. Don't worry about upsetting our racaille!

Wrinkled Weasel said...

Not long ago, Sweden returned a centre-right party and among concerns in the electorate was the issue of immigrants and their anti-social behaviour

In France it is also an issue - the recent riots will have been noted.

Here the anti-social behaviour of some immigrants, and their families, which has included murdering innocent people, will, perhaps be a factor when it comes to voting trends.

Maybe, at last, the electorates around Europe are waking up to the reality of mass, uncontrolled immigration and the subsequent appeasement of their behaviour.

Anonymous said...

Whether we like the French or not (I do) - they certainly know how to run an election! Votes in and counted in record time - something we can learn from La Belle France after the shambles in Scotland last week.

(I get the impression there's no postal voting in France - anyone know whether that's so?)

Andrew Ian Dodge said...

Iain, in order to sort out France you would have to be a bit of bastard. The softy softy approach has totally failed whether it be with the "jeunes" rioting the suburbs or the entrenched unions.